These are the town squares of the 21st century -- extremely valuable public space that bring neighborhoods and communities together, and help overcome the isolation many cities face from auto-oriented design. I'm OK with spending substantial amount on them when community support exists. Certainly, it's a much bigger bang for a city's buck than most road projects.

Concrete facade panels fell from four of the upper floors of the La Quinta at 5151 American Boulevard in Bloomington overnight. They landed on/in the lobby structure and broke the sprinkler system, causing the area to get drenched.

I disagree. They're embracing the principal city, rather than running away from it as suburbs have been doing for decades. Would you rather they went with "South of the River" or "Twin Cities South"? I would not.

We'll see if Eden Prairie and ChanChaska follow suit with a "Minneapolis Southwest".

FWIW, most larger/prominent suburbs have their own independent convention & visitors bureaus. For smaller cities with less resources, it is often just a subcommittee of the local chamber of commerce. These newer joint efforts seem to be layered on top of the individual ones, pooling resources for a nicer website, sharing staff hours, etc.

I go back and forth on these identity things. Something does seem wrong, or kind of depressing, that you'll see "FREEWAY TIME TO DOWNTOWN" signs as far south as 185th/Lakeville, and you're just supposed to intuitively assume that by "downtown", they mean "downtown Minneapolis" -- despite the fact that Lakeville has a historic downtown, and Burnsville has a downtown of sorts

On the other hand, it seems kind of ridiculous to mark the freeway exits at 494/35W or 394/100 with "Minneapolis" as the destination, when you're a mile from the city limits. (IIRC, the Crosstown signage also used to direct to Minneapolis, despite straddling the Mpls border.)

More informally, the "South of the River" identity seems to be alive and well. I once worked for an agency that described itself as a "South of the River alternative to the Warehouse District".

I'm always a little peeved by non-city entities latching onto the branding of the city. Because it's saying that on one hand the brand of the city is valuable, but on the other hand you're not contributing to it at all. I'm sure there's a non-zero number of people that would like to vaporize the central cities and replace them with a park or something, because they think the suburbs are the economic engine of the Metro and the core is just a leach. But most reasonable people don't think that. But I think if you're going to use the Minneapolis (or St Paul) name, you've got to have some skin in the game.

This (and other brands like it) are saying "It's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live (or spend the night) there." I don't think you should get to capitalize on strength of the word Minneapolis without directly contributing to it. Same reason I get peeved that General Mills' mailing address is Minneapolis. They recognize the power of being seen as in Minneapolis rather than Golden Valley, but there they are in Golden Valley. If they want to be a Minneapolis company, they should be a Minneapolis company, with all the things that entails.

The address thing is part logistics. The addresses *are* Minneapolis addresses, for most of Hennepin County (notwithstanding Hopkins and a few others). I live in Richfield; many services autocorrect my mailing city to Minneapolis, because the ZIP code (55423) extends into part of the City of Minneapolis. The official address of the Richfield branch post office on the USPS website is listed as Minneapolis MN 55423.

I disagree that things are a one-way street, however. Richfield has sacrificed a lot of land and homes to create a major international airport that serves Minneapolis, and makes the City of Minneapolis a more functional destination. (But it would obviously be absurd to name it "Richfield International Airport" or "Ft. Snelling International Airport".) Even things like the Mall of America contribute to the national attractiveness of Minneapolis, despite not being in the city limits.

Well Mall of America doesn't use Minneapolis branding. And the General Mills address I'm referring to is their official mailing address, a PO box in Downtown Minneapolis. They also explicitly say their headquarters is in Minneapolis, even though it's very much not. So clearly there's clearly some value in "Minneapolis" to them.

I mean, I realize it's petty, but they're using the Minneapolis name without the kind of property tax payment a corporate headquarters would provide to the city, and without providing access to low level unskilled jobs for city residents (janitors, security guards, cafeteria workers, etc). Granted they don't have much of a say in the path of the city, but on the whole I think they're still coming out ahead.

I totally agree with that sentiment, to the point of censoring out the "Minneapolis" in the vendor's address on the calendar hanging on my cube wall at work. Because 7101 Madison Avenue West is very much Golden Valley, not Minneapolis. If they want the cachet, such as it is, of a Minneapolis address, they're welcome to rent office space east of Xerxes.